338
HISTORY
and no means of control over his compatriots. He went to Canton without seeking the required permit, tried to deal with the Canton officials direct, disobeying the rule that required all communica- tions with the officials to be made through the Co-hong, and after a few weeks of impasse, Napier retired to Macau, a sick man, and died there ten days later.
Meanwhile, official Chinese opinion was becoming alarmed over the financial and moral consequences of the increasing popularity of opium smoking, which led to opium becoming the staple of the trade with India, despite the Chinese prohibition of its importation. After much debate among the Mandarin officials the Emperor appointed Lin Tse-hsü as Special Commissioner, with orders to stamp out the opium trade. He took strong action and within a week of his arrival at Canton, in March 1839, he had surrounded the factories with an armed force, allowed no European to leave, stopped supplies of food and water, and demanded the surrender of all opium for destruction. All opium dealers and masters of ships arriving at the port were called on to sign a bond against the import of opium on pain of death.
Captain Charles Elliot, RN, who had become Superintendent of Trade in 1836, ordered his countrymen to surrender the opium, despite the fact that much of it was owned by firms in India for whom the local merchants were agents; but he refused to allow anyone to sign the bond, and much to Lin's annoyance, he stopped all British trade until the British Government could decide its policy. After a siege of six weeks the British community were allowed to leave for Macau. Lin threatened to drive them from the coast and, when the Portuguese Governor warned Elliot that he could no longer be responsible for their safety, the whole British community took temporary refuge in the harbour at Hong Kong. The Chinese then attempted to prevent local supplies of food reaching the ships, and after several incidents in and around Hong Kong waters the relations between Lin and Elliot broke down completely.
Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, supported by the com- mercial interests in Parliament, decided that the time had come for a settlement of the relations between Britain and China. He demanded either a commercial treaty which should put commercial relations on a satisfactory footing, or the cession of a small island